SUMMARY

A promise or a curse? {In the end it was both. They were both.}

Time did not appreciate being twisted, and Time made sure they knew it. {Harry x Hermione, HHr, Harmony}

Our golden duo is thrust into a tilted past. To make matters worse, they've arrived from different futures. To make matters disastrous, neither properly remembers anything. {be careful Harry... you've made an ally of Death, but an enemy of Time...}

DISCLAIMER

If I owned Harry Potter, I would not have five figures worth of student debt slowly sucking away my happiness. Honestly, student loans are essentially the Muggle Equivalent of a Dementor. This is all just a very verbose way of saying JKR owns Harry Potter and I, to my and my wallet's despair, do not. (Let's be real, if I did, then HHr would have happened, Draco would have gotten a massive redemption arc, in no way shape or form would either of the Weasley Twins died, and Teddy would not be an orphan.)

MAIN PAIRING:

Harry x Hermione

BACKGROUND PAIRINGS/ OTHER RELATIONSHIPS:

Lily x James, Frank x Alice, Blaise x Luna (later). I am open to other pairings.

Marauders friendship (barr the wretched rat), Alice and James friendship.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

WARNING - Characters that are ostensibly being bashed will (mostly) be redeemed, and I will try to give reasons for OOC'ness. I am going to try to avoid gross mischaracterizations (e.g. Ron and Molly will at no point be calling Hermione a mudblood). That being said, it's a Harry x Hermione fan fiction, so of course there will be some non-cannon (but should have been cannon) feelings and reactions. There will be at least one major OC in this: Harry's brother. This will be a pseudo WBWL fic, you'll see what I mean later ;-). This fic will be addressing some morally dark themes, and you will often be encountering a Grey!Harry and a Grey!Hermione. This first chapter is more of a teaser to gauge interest in the story, so if you enjoy please do let me know that you want more by leaving a comment/ kudos/ review!

An Hourglass of Ashes

"Awful things happen to wizards who meddle with time, Harry."

~ Hermione Granger, Prisoner of Azkaban

Chapter 1

Three Prices Paid

"You think the dead we loved ever truly leave us?"

~ Albus Dumbledore, Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry opens his eyes to an endless expanse of white.

'Death is silent.'

His thought echoes loudly compared to the quiet space. The stray words are closely followed by the relieved observation that he isn't in any pain. It is a welcome but surprising state, as the last sensation he remembers is the cold impact of a familiar green light.

'Third time's the charm,' he notes bitterly.

'Oh, don't you dare be so broody, Harry James Potter.' Hermione would chastise teasingly, probably while playfully cuffing him over the head. Her warm brown eyes would shine as she smiled to soften her reprimand. Or, at least, she would tease and she would smile. If she were here. If she weren't… if she weren't…

'The dead don't smile.'

Harry's gut twists violently, and flashes of their past encounters burn behind his eyes.

("There's a reason I can hear them, the horcruxes. I think I've known for a while, and I think you have too." Harry's voice breaks at the end.

Hermione drops her grip on Ron's arm and cautiously approaches Harry, slightly limping as she meanders around the ruins of Hogwarts – the crumbling imitation of what was once their home. A bastion of safety, now broken and beaten; a shade in the place of a beacon.

"I'll go with you." Hermione offers, gaze tearful and pleading.

"No." Harry shakes his head roughly. "Promise me, Hermione. Promise me you won't follow me. Kill the snake. Kill the snake, and then it's just him."

His words barely leave before she clings to him. She clutches him cruelly, in a way that reminds him of what he is really sacrificing. Her grip tightens. She doesn't smell like vanilla or honey; just tragedy. He lifts his cheek from her shoulder, looks over it to meet Ron's devastated face. There is no easy-going smile, no willful ignorance, not anymore. They all know that Harry James Potter will die today. 'I'm trusting you with the snake,' Harry wants to say to Ron, as resigned green meets bereaved blue. 'I'm trusting you with Hermione, Ron. I need you to stand by her. Love her, appreciate her; I want you both to live long and happy lives even if they are without me. I'm sorry you have to lose another brother. Be happy, Ron.' Harry wants to say a lot of things to the first friend he ever had, but he thinks his battered soul can't push the last words from his lips.

"Promise me, Hermione," he repeats instead.)

It had been a miniature war within an ongoing battle to force the promise from her bloodied lips, but she ultimately relented. Her desperate words and begrudging concession had alighted a bittersweet hesitation from him. And he remembers, at the time, feeling morosely unsurprised. He had thought it fitting - quite on par the course for his life - that he would begin to suspect the true depth of Hermione's feelings for him just moments before he faced certain death.

Only he hadn't died. Not that time, anyways.

Voldemort's defeat at the Battle of Hogwarts is merely one chapter in the saga of tales lived by the Golden Trio. In the aftermath of the battle, their world gave a good show of healing, and masquerading itself for the better. Harry and Ron were accepted into the Auror Academy. Ginny and Hermione finished their final year lined in Gryffindor colours before the latter proudly joined The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Kingsley Shacklebolt was announced as the new Minister for Magic. Death Eaters were arrested. There was no looming plot or conspiracy; they were finally safe and they were finally happy.

Of course, their respite from misery was a transient thing.

Ron and Hermione had a falling out, a much more volatile (if less publicized) one than Harry and Ginny's own. The Ministry's corruption continued, foiling many of Kingsley's attempts at progress. Not all, but at least some, known Death Eaters were given pardons. Pureblood supremacy was hidden but existent, spawning secret factions that worked with foul intentions. It was one of those vulgar groups that ripped the most important person in Harry's life from him.

Hermione Jane Granger, age 21, was tortured to death just three days after she secured the passing of an equal work pay rights bill for magical creatures. The perpetrators of the depraved act had taken wizarding photos of their atrocious deeds, and then sent them to news outlets and families alike, eager to breed panic. However, only Harry's package of moving photos had been also accompanied by a letter.

'To the Boy-Destined-To-Die,

The Mudblood begged for you to save her in between her screams.'

Ron did not handle Hermione's death well. The Weasley blamed both Harry and himself for not finding and saving her in time. And once, when Ron first started to accept that she was truly dead, he even blamed Hermione herself for choosing to save Harry instead of running when she sensed the shadows that followed the duo back from the bill's congratulatory dinner.

Ron had been a mess for weeks.

But Harry?

Harry saw red.

Red. Red. Red.

And he saw nothing but red after the vile photos for months. When his vision finally cleared, he found himself standing in a room doused in the rotten iron stench of blood and guts and gore.

Red. Red. Red.

("H-Harry? What… Oh Merlin, Harry, what did you do?!")

Ron had been part of the Auror squad that was first on site at the gruesome scene.

Red. Red. Red.

- Remember the colour of the Torture curse? -

Ron, his brother; a sentiment that remained true even after Ron started to suspect that Harry loved his ex-fiancé, and even after Ron realized that Hermione had softened towards the would-have-been-best-man's advances. His brother's blue eyes had widened in disbelief and horror. Harry supposed he should have been equally appalled at his own actions, but all Harry felt was justice.

("They tortured her, Ron.")

Harry remembers saying, a cold neutrality carving his jaw as he looked upon the advancing Aurors' wary eyes and raised wands.

("I only wish I had killed them slower.")

Harry saw it clearly; the shattered look in Ron's dulled eyes when the Weasley realized that – in all the ways that mattered - both his best friends were gone. And it wasn't worth much in the end, was it? Because vengeance had been a fleeting filler for the festering wound in Harry's chest. The supremacist bastards' blood had not breathed back life into Hermione's corpse. Harry's carmine crusade had not brought her back...

A black wraith drifts into Harry's peripheral vision, and he rips himself from his bleak musings to attend to it. The robed spectre starkly contrasts against the bleached setting, and its threadbare appearance steals Harry's attention from the sharp red and blue fragments in his mind. Blithely, Harry wonders if he should assume a defensive position, then quickly decides that any protective movement would serve no point. After all, the Boy-Who-Lived is dead. For true, this time. That being said, even if Harry does not fear the approaching skeletal hands of the dastardly apparition, neither is Harry ambivalent towards the wafting beast hidden by floating dark fabrics. No, there is no ambivalence, just... resolution.

Harry has intent. He has a purpose, a goal... a promise.

("Promise me, Hermione. Promise me you won't follow me.")

She had promised, but he hadn't promised back. So when they took her from him, he followed. And isn't that just ironic? The Boy-Who-Lived chasing the Girl-Who-Died.

'This time, I'm saving you. Hermione, I'm coming.'

The bony hands of the shrouded spectre recede, and the monster's hollow eyes seem amused when its voice rasps, "Peverell blood." Malicious delight twists the creature's mouth as it gleefully warns, "I give nothing for free."

Harry nods. Then he steels himself to make the same mistake as his ancestors.

("I'll go with you.")

It was time to make a deal with Death.

Preview for Chapter 2 below.

Author's Note: Whelp, that's a taste of this new fic. Question: which of the following names do you guys prefer for Harry's brother (the one who will be heralded as the BWL)?

A) Evan (after Lily's maiden name)

B) Daniel (after Radcliffe)

C) Charlie/Charlus (after Charlus potter, the boys' paternal grandfather)

D) Other

Image credited to following sources:

/clubs /harry-and-hermione-x-ron-and-luna /images/ 34648381/ title/ harry-hermione-fanart

/ free-transparent-background -png- clipart-bcmoa

/ free-transparent-background -png- clipart-kneza

svgsilh (dotcom) slash image slash

Preview of Upcoming Chapters

- an altered attack at Godric's Hollow on October 31st,1981 (James Potter does not hate his eldest son, despite the infamous horrors on the stormy evening of October 31st, 1981.)

- a second prophecy (There isn't even time to mull over the longer-term implications of the prophecy, no time to notice or question the way Dumbledore warily eyes their eldest son, a cautious gaze mirroring the way he once apprised a young boy in Wool's Orphanage)

- Harry meets Hermione ("And here I thought you a hero. How selfish, to sentence her to such a life.")

Please review if you enjoyed :-)